So, when we were driving down to the shore, a Phil Collins song came on.
You know the one.
“I can feel it, coming in the air tonight.”
And immediately, Real Man and I looked at each other and started laughing.
“Hey,” he said. “Did you know that he wrote this song because he saw someone push someone overboard on a boat to kill them?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And, so he invited the guy to the concert and shined the spotlight on him and sang the song and then when it was over, the cops arrested the guy?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
Then, we proceeded to sing it at the top of our lungs, whilst the monkeys looked at each other in utter confusion, as their parents had clearly lost their minds.
You know that urban legend, right?
At least, I think it’s an urban legend.
The first time I remember that particular story is telling it on Michaela’s Dad’s boat, the summer after 8th grade.
Now I’m starting to think that maybe I made it up.
Anyway, I love urban legends.
They crack me up.
Like, the one with the couple who were making out in their car and they heard a news report that a mental patient had escaped from a nearby mental hospital. The patient…had a hook for a hand.
So, the couple is a little freaked out, but they go about making out until they hear scrapings near the car and then decide to leave and peel out.
When they get home, the boy goes around to open the girls door and finds a bloody hook hanging from the handle.
Or the one where the girl is driving home on the highway, alone, late at night, and a Mac truck is behind her and he starts riding her tail, flashing his brights and almost bumping her.
She freaks and starts driving faster, and he keeps following her. Off of the highway and into her residential neighborhood, which really freaks her out.
She pulls into the driveway and the driver jumps out and races to her car.
She screams.
But, instead of going for her, he yanks open her back door and pulls out the scary guy with a knife that he saw laying in her back seat.
Great story.
Erin can tell you the hours I spent in my closet, in my early childhood, holding a flashlight under my chin, telling these stories and then whipping out my arm from behind my back with a hanger stuffed up my sleeve to represent a hook hand.
I barely got through the story most of the time because I’d crack up into hysterical laughter.
I crack myself up.
I am my own best audience.
Love. Those. Stories.
I can’t get enough of scary stories or scary movies.
Even when they are ridiculous.
And, I’m always so sad for the people who believe them.
Like my mom.
I love you, Mom, but you are quite gullible.
Which you already know.
When Real Man and I were dating, we were having dinner with my parents one night and we were telling urban legends and I was telling the one about the girl in college.
You know…she is out partying and comes back to her dorm room.
Alone.
She’s just about to turn on the light, and then decides just to go to sleep.
When she wakes in the morning, she finds her roommate dead in her bed and a note on the mirror, written in blood.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?”
Get it?
He was in the room when she got home and let her live because she didn’t see him.
So, I tell that one and my Mom says, “Oh my God!!! That happened to a girl I knew at Trenton State! It happened while I was in college!”
Okay Mom. Sure it did.
We believe you.
It’s cute, that she believed that.
One day I’ll write a post about the prank phone calls I used to make to my parents and how they fell for them every time.
But, that’s a post for another day.
Anyway, I’m curious, if you feel like sharing.
What’s your favorite urban legend?
I’d be so excited if you told me one that I hadn’t heard before!
